#2292 - Josh Waitzkin

Joshua Waitzkin (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Whenever someone is like an interesting person, and then I find out they do Jiu Jitsu too, I go, oh, I could talk to that guy, for sure.

Joshua Waitzkin (0:20)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

You know? I get excited when interesting people do Jiu Jitsu, because I think for the outsider, to a lot of people that haven't been exposed to what it's like to train, and what it's like to be around high-level Jiu Jitsu people, they don't know that vibe. They don't know what it's like. They don't know the beauty of Jiu Jitsu. I feel like Jiu Jitsu is beautiful for people who practice it.

You see, Marcelo is a great example, your coach. Marcelo is probably one of the most beautiful guys to watch because he just takes advantage of these scrambles in this really beautiful way, like fast and slippery, and when the opponents react, he reacts in the other way. It's all just technique and flow. It's like, ah, like the first time I ever saw him, I saw him live in 2003 in Abu Dhabi, and it was when he fought Chao Lin. That was the first time I had ever seen him in the flesh. I didn't even...

Joshua Waitzkin (1:25)

Choked him out in like 8 seconds, 10 seconds.

Joe Rogan (1:27)

Oh my God, this is crazy scrambles, but no one even knew him. No one knew of him other than, you know, he was obviously, I think he was a brown belt at the time. I don't even think he was a black belt. I think Marcelo might have been a brown belt.

Joshua Waitzkin (1:39)

That's interesting, I didn't, in 2003

Joe Rogan (1:42)

Find that out, was Marcelo a brown belt when he won Abu Dhabi in 2003? He may have, Eddie Bravo was a brown belt when he tapped out Hoyler.

Joshua Waitzkin (1:48)

He told me recently that right before that fight, like his grips had locked up. So he went into that fight, it looks incredible. Just that arm drag, take the back, choked him out in seconds.

Joe Rogan (1:57)

His like hands?

Joshua Waitzkin (1:58)

Yeah, his like grips from the fight before were like.

Joe Rogan (2:00)

Oh wow.

Joshua Waitzkin (2:02)

When Eddie beat Hoyler, he was a brown belt?

Joe Rogan (2:05)

Yep.

Joshua Waitzkin (2:06)

Wow.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

Yeah. John Jock took his black belt off of his own waist and put it on Eddie.

Joshua Waitzkin (2:12)

Amazing. Amazing.

Joe Rogan (2:14)

Dude.

Joshua Waitzkin (2:14)

That's epic. So it's funny, my background, we have a lot of overlap in our early Jiu Jitsu education because my first teacher was John Machado.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

Oh, okay.

Joshua Waitzkin (2:23)

And I spent years training with John in LA, long before. And then I'm, yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:30)

And then when did you move to New York?

Joshua Waitzkin (2:32)

So I moved to New York. I think I started training with John. So I was doing Chinese martial arts for a bunch of years before that, competing everywhere. Then I started training, cross-training with John in I think 2001, 2002 And then early 2005, moved back to New York, started training with Marco Santos in his school in New York. And I was training with Ju Kao and Alison Brittis. Ju Kao is an amazing old school Bracy Baja, like, you know, amazing fighter.

And I was also cross-training with Lucas Lepre at the time. And I was, I needed, I was just ready to, and then I met Marcelo and I was, and he had moved from New York to Florida. And I was traveling to Florida to train with Marcelo a bunch. And I wanted to be pushed all in. And Marcelo and I had gotten really close. And then I said to him, hey man, you know, you want to come back to New York and open a school together. And he really loved New York. And we had gotten very close.

Joe Rogan (3:29)

Where was he at the time?

Joshua Waitzkin (3:30)

He was in Florida. He was in New York before.

He loved New York, but then he had to move to Florida. He'd been, there was just a lot of jiu-jitsu politics flowing everywhere as it does. Jiu-jitsu politics. The worst. And yeah, anyway, long story short, we opened a school together after that. And it was amazing. Then I spent so many years all in training with him. Most of such a beautiful, beautiful martial artist.

Joe Rogan (3:55)

So in 2002, he's promoted to black belt. So he was already a black belt because this is 2003